Future of Engineering

The functionality of Artificial hands is being expanded rapidly by some new developments that are changing things for people who use artificial hands. In 2005 a University of Southampton research team developed a prototype prosthesis that uses six sets of motors and gears to that each of the five fingers can move independently. Plus, the new hand has an opposing thumb that can rotate as well as “pinch”. The next stage will be to integrate the latest load cell technology to create a ‘clever’ hand which can sense how strongly it is gripping an object, or whether an object is slipping.
Another super prosthesis is being built by Advanced Arm Dynamics. It is faster than other myoelectric artificial hands, and has autograsp which allows the wearer to simply hold an object without wasting energy on monitoring whether the item is slipping or not.

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